Dante - The Divine Comedy

How am I meant to read this?

Lookup the references as I go or read it all through once then read it again with the references?

Looking up the references really interrupts the flow.

All Italian forms of Christianity are actually Roman paganism. The ironic punishments make sense only if you know about Roman mythology. This is also why the Italian pope approved of Hitler's reign of terror. They never believed that the Jews were significant. Zeus chose the Italians.